Alabama is an abortion battlefield, and “The Daily Show” highlighted one civil rights attorney’s struggle to win it — by prosecuting teens seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies, and representing the unborn fetuses inside them.
Correspondent Jessica Williams ventured down to the red state to speak with Julian McPhillips, who describes himself as a “civil rights attorney.”
“Everyone deserves the right to a fair trial,” McPhillips said when speaking of a new law, HB494.
McPhillips says it “sets aside money for an attorney appointed by the law to protect the interest of the person on whose benefit their appointed,” which sounds like a great idea. So why is Alabama’s American Civl Liberties Union filing a lawsuit to block the “unconstitutional” law?
Executive director Susan Watson explains: “In the state of Alabama, a teen needs parental consent to get an abortion. If she can’t get that consent, she can go to the court. Now with this new law, the court can appoint an attorney for the fetus and actually put the teen on trial.”
“You have a crazy-ass job,” Williams told McPhillips.
Watch the segment to see McPhillips answers to tough questions like, “You get a call from a fetus seeking legal representation, and then what happens?”; “How do you keep confidentiality with your client?”; “How do you know if a fetus is innocent?”; “What about a fetus that eats its own twin in utero?”